Hello, I have read all threads on similar problems and I believe this is something new. Basically, our 2005-era Series 2 TiVo keeps complaining that we're running out of guide data (and it really is running out), even though it is making successful daily connections to the TiVo service. I have confirmed this by checking the system information and the last connection status is always within the past day, but the date for current guide data is only a couple days from now. Also, I have forced connections to the TiVo service several times through the settings menu, and this always succeeds, but it is not updating the guide data.

Our other TiVo (a 2003-era Series 2) is not having this problem.

Here's some background, including things I've done/checked:

We are Comcast subscribers in the Portland, OR area. On both TiVos I ran through the TiVo setup wizard to set them up to use the Comcast digital adapter/set-top box. I have chosen 'Comcast Tualatin Valley Region' as our cable provider on both TiVos.

I have tried using the 'Comcast Portland' provider listing when re-doing the TiVo setup wizard, but it does not appear to be any different.

We have never had this problem before on either TiVo unless there was an actual connectivity problem (before the TiVo wireless adapters came out sometimes the 3rd party adapters would require a re-connect).

Running through the TiVo setup wizard appears to make the problem go away for a week; in fact I thought I fixed it last week but we just started getting the warnings again yesterday. This tells me that we are downloading guide data during the setup process, but it stops getting the guide data after that.

Looking at the TiVo site now, and account is in good standing on both TiVos.

Any ideas? I really don't want to run through the setup wizard every week, as that takes a long time and seems to disrupt our to-do list and Kidzone settings.

I'm resurrecting this thread because my TivoHD is exhibiting similar behaviour. My TivoHD will successfully connect each day, but the Program Info To: date will not increment. It stays put at the last date the unit was rebooted.

I have been able to deal with the problem by rebooting the TivoHD every week or so (or as soon as I start getting the guide data running low messages), but I'd like a more permanent solution, as in a fix of some kind.

The issue you mention is not something we encounter regularly enough to have troubleshooting for. I would expect KS57 to help only if you saw an actual failure during indexing or loading (S03), but you indicate that your connections are succeeding.

A few questions:

What model DVR is this?

Has it been modified in any way?

Before you reboot the DVR, what happens if you browse through the guide to future dates? Is the result consistent across multiple channels?

Are you able to search beyond the date listed in System Information?

Does your To Do List display anything beyond the date displayed in SysInfo?

Do you have any channels in your channel list that were added manually (i.e. don't have a network identifier next to it)?

The issue you mention is not something we encounter regularly enough to have troubleshooting for. I would expect KS57 to help only if you saw an actual failure during indexing or loading (S03), but you indicate that your connections are succeeding.

It appears I was wrong. The connections do not complete. Nor are they initiated, based on what I saw tonight (The next connection time listed had passed, and no connection had taken place). I do recall that if I manually forced a connection, that the Program Info To: date did not change afterwards. I still received the guide data running out messages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TiVoJerry

A few questions:

And here are the answers.

What model DVR is this?
TivoHD

Has it been modified in any way?
Yes. Twice. First to a 500 GB drive, then to a 1TB drive. The last upgrade occured towards the end of April. I upgraded two units using WinMFS at the same time with two of the same model hard drive. Only this one unit is having a problem. Truth be told, this issue only began to manifest itself after the April upgrade, not before. I cannot be certain that the upgrade did not intiate this behavior. Immediately after I brought the upgraded unit online, I realized I forgot to supersize this unit's drive. Additionally I may have played with this unit's swap file size, so just tonight I ran WinMFS again on this drive using both the "supersize" and "fixswap" commands. I just brought this unit back online 30 minutes ago. Perhaps this will fix my issue.

Before you reboot the DVR, what happens if you browse through the guide to future dates? Is the result consistent across multiple channels?
I will wait a few days to answer this question as there is a chance that the two things I did tonight may solve the problem.

Are you able to search beyond the date listed in System Information?
I will wait a few days to answer this question as there is a chance that the two things I did tonight may solve the problem.

Does your To Do List display anything beyond the date displayed in SysInfo?
I will wait a few days to answer this question as there is a chance that the two things I did tonight may solve the problem.

Do you have any channels in your channel list that were added manually (i.e. don't have a network identifier next to it)?
No. I have only deleted channels from the channel lineup. I have not added any. I was not even aware that channels could be added manually when the Tivo has a Cable Card installed. And a Tuning Adapter, if that makes a difference.

Even after the two changes I made tonight, I can confirm the following:

1) Daily connections do not take place. This despite resetting the network DHCP parameters and also setting a static IP. I know this because the Next Connection date and time have already passed. And the Last Successful Connection was a date and time prior to the the Next Connection date listed. This unit will no longer initiate on its own a connection to the mothership.

2) Forced connections and test the connection both work and complete correctly. There are no error messages whatsoever for either of these activities.

3) If I force a connection, upon successful completion, the Program Info To: does not increment. It is currently at Monday, June 22. The only thing I have found that will cause the date to increment is a system reboot.

I will wait on a reboot until I receive the messages about guide data running low. At that time I will conduct the other tests to obtain answers to the remaining questions above.

With this new information, would it be advantageous to run a kickstart? If so which one?

Give me 24 hours on getting you that TSN, Jerry. I've got some more information. I went home for lunch and took another look at the System Information screen. The plot thickens ....

Low and behold the Last Successful Connection date and time changed! The unit called the mothership around 11AM Central and successfully completed that daily call. Why it called in at that time I do not know. This morning when I checked, the Next Connection date and time referenced a time that had passed.

Another interesting change, the Next Connection time and date has now changed to be sometime tomorrow. Hmmm.

However, there was no change in the Program Info To: entry. That date did not change. It is still listed as Monday June 22. The date did not increment.

I also commenced a Kickstart 57 disk check after learning all this, but prior to reading your post Jerry. I will check tonight to see if the kickstart sequence solves my problem. If not, expect my TSN via PM tomorrow midday.

I'm having the same problem on my Pioneer 810H. I ran a Guided Setup, which seemed to be successful, but now, several hours later I still get the message across the bottom of the screen that "Program info will run out on Sat 6/13. I also received a message from Tivo saying info would run out in three days and to connect to Tivo service. I've done that several times. Also, I just tried to find something to record by channel and time and was said there were no programs. What do you think I should do next>??? Thanks, Peggy

Hi: Just wanted to report that I ran the Guided Setup one more and now all is well. Hooray! Someone on the Tivo board had suggested that maybe there had been a change in the cable company that somehow wasn't being picked up. I wondered if maybe it had something to do with the digital cable conversion. Don't know, but I'm thrilled that it's working again without having to change the hard drive. Yippee!!

I am still having the date incrementing issue. I also have answers to the other questions below.

Before you reboot the DVR, what happens if you browse through the guide to future dates? Is the result consistent across multiple channels?
If I go to future dates beyond the Program Info To: date, program information appears across all channels.

Are you able to search beyond the date listed in System Information?
Yes.

Does your To Do List display anything beyond the date displayed in SysInfo?
Yes.

It appears that I have the guide data, but the Program Info To: date is what generates the warning messages. I wonder why its not incrementing. Odd.

I'm having the same problem with a Series 3. My daughter in Flagstaff just reported having the same problem on her HD.

I have an external Cisco Tuning Adapter, two Motorola CableCards, and an external eSATA drive. My daughter has none of these, and also has the problem, so I doubt that any of these widgets are related to the cause.

Rebooting the Tivo does not fix the problem. Repeating Guided Setup appears to fix the problem (for now).

Symptoms: Programming Download succeeds. Programming To date updates. You can successfully page through the guide through future dates, but the To Do list shows no new programs to record, and Searching by Title shows no titles.

kentfuka, what you are reporting is almost the exact opposite of what this thread is covering. Please contact customer support to see if one of our agents can assist you. I'm guessing that it is possible your DVR is selecting an incorrect lineup.

Unfortunately I'm slammed with too many issues to take this on directly.

I'm having the problem that I've seen in the TiVo Community discussions, where my TiVo tells me that program info will run out, even though it successfully connects and downloads program info every day.

I have a TiVo XL with a tuning adapter and cable card. I have not modified it.

I have two weeks of program data, but I get a message at the bottom of my screen that says "Program info will run out on Sun 3/14!"

My TiVo last connected today, and it connected successfully. But, on the System Information screen, it says "Program Information To: Sunday March 14, 2010".

This line never gets updated unless I do a cold boot.

I called TiVo, and they say it's probably a hard drive problem, and they want to swap out my box for a refurbished one, and charge me $49, because I'm a few days past warranty. But, I hesitate to do that, because this doesn't sound like a hardware problem.

I called TiVo, and they say it's probably a hard drive problem, and they want to swap out my box for a refurbished one, and charge me $49, because I'm a few days past warranty. But, I hesitate to do that, because this doesn't sound like a hardware problem.

Is there something I can do short of swapping out my box?

It is probably a database corruption problem (if TiVo knows there's a problem with the show database, it won't attempt to add any more shows to it), which in turn is probably a hard drive problem.

However, you can attempt to directly attack the database corruption problem with one of the kickstart procedures. Search for the instructions on how to do it; I think it is kickstart 57 but I'm not sure.

You might also try "clear program information & to do list" to let it download the data all over again. also, if you're going to consider an exchange you might as well wipe out everything {last resort} with "clear and delete everything", but try clearing just program info first.

__________________
"Do not try and bend the spoon. That is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth......there is no spoon."

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll try the Kickstart 57 first, because it sounds like that will keep my saved programs and season passes. If that doesn't work, I'll try "Clear program and to do list". If that doesn't work, I'll try "Clear and Delete Everything". If that doesn't work, I'll swap the box.

As long as you haven't EVER modified it, call Tivo and push to get customer support to escalate the issue to engineering. They should be able to turn on logging and see what might be wrong. From what I've read they don't do this very often, so you may have to push for it.

__________________
"Do not try and bend the spoon. That is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth......there is no spoon."

I don't understand why people think this is a hard drive problem. It sounds like a software problem. Can anyone offer another solution? I don't want to lose all the shows I've recorded.

It's obviously not a pure software problem, since there are tens of thousands of people running exactly the same software as you on the same TiVo model as you, and they don't have your problem. The only two possibilities are your hardware, or the signal/info being transferred to your particular TiVo. If it's hardware, it's probably the disks (way above 90% of the time). It could be your signal - your internet connection being flaky and getting a corrupt download every time, but that seems very unlikely.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. Called TiVo, they had me reboot and do a forced connect immediately when it came up. This fixed it- for a few weeks- it happened again this morning. A reboot and forced connect has cured it again, but I wonder. I've got a tuning adapter too... lots of 'different' things started happening once I got it. Suggestions, programming, etc.

For me, a reboot ALWAYS fixes the problem. Until a week later, then I get a message that I only have a week of data left. It obviously has the guide data - immediately after the reboot, the guide data to field is updated.

Yes, I also have a tuning adapter, and yes, the problem starting happening after the tuning adapter was installed. So, I'd have to be out of my mind to accept TiVo's suggesting of replacing my TiVo unit with a refurbished unit, and lose all my saved programs and season passes, if the problem is likely to happen again with the replacement unit, as it has for others who also have a tuning adapter installed.

I did escalate to engineering, but they didn't turn on logging. That sounds like a good idea.

For those who suggested it's a hard drive problem - I just replaced my drive the middle of last week. Checked it now? It only has 1 1/2 weeks of guide data available according to the information screen.

As expected, the hard drive has nothing to do with it. Absolutely a Tivo software bug. Seeing that they have their hands full on the Premiere series..... I doubt this will get attention any time soon...